AT&T Explains Its Network Issues, Via YouTube

AT&T has made tons of money off of the iPhone, but at the same time, received tons of criticism of its network. That criticism may or may not be warranted, as despite calls for a Verizon version of the iPhone, it's unclear if even Verizon's stronger 3G network could handle the data-guzzling device, which the NY Times recently called, "the Hummer of cell phones."

At any rate, AT&T, seeing more and more complaints about dropped calls, slow connections, etc. etc., has sent out talking head Seth Bloom AKA "Seth the blogger guy" to address the AT&T network, via YouTube.

AT&T basically said it was the increase in smartphone use that has caused the problem. They were proud that "in many ways, we've enabled the smartphone revolution," but since they addressed the iPhone's upcoming MMS launch on their network, you could see that they were telling iPhone users: it's all your fault.

In reality, iPhone users use more data than other smartphone users, and that's not a point that can be argued.

AT&T wound up the video by saying: "We have heard you, we are on it, and we will use this hard won experience to lead the industry into the future."

That's all arguable, but the problems AT&T faces are perhaps a bad omen of things to come for other carriers, as they begin offering Android and Palm webOS devices that may put a heavy strain on their own networks (or even if they managed to wrest the iPhone away from AT&T).

While the iPhone is great (and full disclosure, we have one), it's indeed a data hog.